New Simpson College program pairs startups, established businesses

INDIANOLA, IOWA—This fall Simpson College in Indianola will offer a new course to pair business leaders with a startup companies on the verge of investment. The course, called the EMERGE Innovation Immersion Program, will focus on the idea of “intrapreneurship,” the use of entrepreneurial strategies inside an established organization.

Innovation Immersion Program

INDIANOLA, IOWA—This fall, Simpson College in Indianola will offer a new course to pair business leaders with startup companies on the verge of investment. The course, called the EMERGE Innovation Immersion Program, will focus on the idea of “intrapreneurship,” the use of entrepreneurial strategies inside an established organization.

Program director Chris Draper helped develop the course based on the idea that many established companies need entrepreneurial ideas to grow and continue adapting.Photo from LinkedIn

“This is what the companies are doing when they send their executives on a sabbatical,” Draper (right) told SPN. “This is a course that can do this without paying $200,000 on a corporate retreat.”

The course—running from Oct. 17 through Dec. 16—will have a class of 18-24 students working with one “startup-in-residence” over a period of nine weeks. The first session will begin at Simpson College’s West Des Moines campus, with the rest of the classes taking place at Gravitate, Des Moines’ newest “entrepreneurial center of gravity.”

The students will be divided into teams of four and work on one of six professional disciplines: operations, finance, marketing and sales, strategic management, training and human resources. Cost of the program is $1,948 per student.

The Innovation Immersion Program is part of a larger Simpson College initiative called EMERGE. The new venture accelerator is a partnership between the College, the Indianola Development Association and the Indianola Municipal Utility and gives students the chance to work with startup businesses in the area.

“What’s important to know about the program is, like EMERGE, it’s a solution that’s built for our community,” Draper said. “The formula has to be built for Iowa.”

Draper hopes this course will lead to more corporate investment in the Des Moines area, as well as more partnerships between the startup community and established businesses.

“We aren’t seeing corporate investment in Des Moines, and I think what we’ve done is build those two sides closer together so they can they see the value of each other and build corporate partnerships,” he said. “It’s already working over the country, just not as clearly and systematically as we’re developing it.”

 

Read more about Simpson College’s EMERGE program through our previous coverage: “EMERGE incubator at Simpson College finishes first semester.”

This story is part of the AIM Archive

This story is part of the AIM Institute Archive on Silicon Prairie News. AIM gifted SPN to the Nebraska Journalism Trust in January 2023. Learn more about SPN’s origin »

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